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Adding a luggage rack on the Transalp

Posted by on February 11, 2011

So after some research on the available luggage racks for the Transalp we decided to save some time and ordered a FIVE STARS Side Rack Systems from the German site Louis.

But it didn’t really fit super nicely, spacers too short and holes were not lining up:

Spacers are to short

Front bolts wont really line up well

Spacers are to short

Contacted Louis and complained some and they sent me along to the manufacture. I got tired of arguing and it wasn’t that expensive so decided to just install it. Here are the steps I did:

Needed some force to bend it for the holes to line up:

Bending it to fit front bolt

Counter sunk these holes so the bolts holding the cross brace wouldn’t stick out and because soft luggage will be used and we don’t want anything rubbing against it:

Counter sunk these bolt to not rubb on luggage

Had plans on keeping the tool tube that came with the bike and just relocated it had this arrangement to lengthen the spacer, but had to skip the tool tube for now since in this location it would interfere with the straps from the bags:

Adding stuff to make spacer longer

A longer spacer for the right side made out of a piece of steel pipe, just rattle can paint to get it black:

Painting new spacer

And the cross brace looked very dangerous just bolting in place. A few 100 meters on gravel and my guess is that it would have worked its way down so it would hit the wheel so to secure it I added a piece of aluminum securing it to the support frame for the rear light and licence plate holder:

Plate to hold cross brace in place

I then discovered that a bolt was missing:

Hmm this bolt was missing

Since this seems to be the best way to route the straps the tool tube would interfer:

Tool tube wouldn't fit here

Since I had to skip the tool tube I needed another spacer, sorted that out by cutting the right side spacer since that was replaced already to make that fill the gap:

Had to drop the tool tube so cut the spacer to make it fit

But the left indicator sticks out a bit to much.  There were some pieces made to relocate the indicators further back but I would prefer if they stayed inside the rack for protection, made two bracket to relocate them:

The two brackets and the raw material i used

And what they look in bolted on:

Indicators relocated

UPDATE:

Since we had a request about better side views of the rack installed here they are:

Left side

Right side, since we are going to replace the battery we haven’t bolted the cover back in place:

Right side

With luggage in place, height might need to be adjusted and a strap over them that goes around the luggage rack is the easiest way to hold them in place:

Left side with luggage

And right side with luggage:

Right side with luggage

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